Brocade today announced its new Fabric Vision technology, a hardware and software SAN solution.
The company claims that the product maximises uptime, dramatically simplifies SAN deployment and management, and provides unprecedented levels of visibility and insight into the storage network.
Based on the 16 Gbps fibre channel standard, Brocade also announced the availability of the high-density Brocade 6520 Switch along with enhancements to its fabric management software. The new switch boasts of 96 Fibre Channel ports in a 2U form factor, delivering industry-leading port density and space utilisation for data centre consolidation projects. Currently, it is available through Brocade OEM partners Fujitsu, HP and NetApp, as well as through Brocade channel partners.
Sufian Dweik, Regional Manager, MEMA, Brocade Communications said, “In order to manage the smooth operation of today’s highly virtualised environments, IT teams require tools that give them a high degree of visibility into their storage networks. Brocade Fabric Vision technology and the Brocade 6520 switch offer this along with unmatched levels of performance and reliability thereby allowing greater productivity while simultaneously protecting against system failures that would potentially derail operations.”
Brocade Fabric Vision technology combines Brocade hardware, the embedded Fabric Operating System (Fabric OS) and Brocade’s Network Advisor management software into a single solution. According to the vendor, this solution will enable network administrators to “anticipate and pre-empt problems before they impact operations” thereby reducing operational expenses.
Brocade Fabric Vision technology includes:
Policy-based tools that simplify fabric-wide threshold configuration and monitoring
Management tools that allow administrators to identify, monitor and analyse specific application data flows, without the need for expensive, disruptive, third-party tools
Monitoring tools that detect network congestion and latency in the fabric, providing visualisation of bottlenecks and identifying exactly which devices and hosts are impacted
Customisable health and performance dashboard views, providing all critical information in one screen
Cable and optic diagnostic features that simplify the deployment and support of large fabrics
The product also accommodates for future enhancements and new capabilities that will be available through Brocade OEM and channel partners later in 2013.
Commenting on the market demand for fibre channel SAN solutions and Brocade’s continued focus and commitment to the fibre channel industry, Jason Nolet, Vice President, Data Center Networking Group, Brocade, said, “Our customers run their most critical applications and store their most important data on Brocade fibre channel infrastructure to support highly virtualised and emerging cloud-optimised data centres. They depend on Brocade to continue innovating and developing solutions that solve real-world problems today and that can adapt to evolving requirements into the future.”
